1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to content management systems, and more specifically relates to a content management system that autonomically updates templates for generating documents.
2. Background Art
A content management system (CMS) allows many users to efficiently share electronic content such as text, audio files, video files, pictures, graphics, etc. Content management systems typically control access to content in a repository. A user may generate content, and when the content is checked into the repository, the content is checked by the CMS to make sure the content conforms to predefined rules. A user may also check out content from the repository, or link to content in the repository while generating content. The rules in a CMS assure that content to be checked in or linked to meets desired criteria specified in the rules.
Known content management systems check their rules when content is being checked in. If the rule is satisfied, the content is checked into the repository. If the rule is not satisfied, the content is not checked into the repository. Known content management systems may include rules related to bursting, linking, and synchronization. Bursting rules govern how a document is bursted, or broken into individual chunks, when the document is checked into the repository. By bursting a document into chunks, the individual chunks may potentially be reused later by a different author. Linking rules govern what content in a repository a user may link to in a document that will be subsequently checked into the repository. Synchronization rules govern synchronization between content and metadata related to the content. For example, a synchronization rule may specify that whenever a specified CMS attribute is changed, a particular piece of XML in the content should be automatically updated with that attribute's value.
Templates are often used in known content management systems to speed up and simplify the process of generating a document. A template is a document that includes predefined structure and content that gives the author a shortcut in generating a document of a particular type. In known content management systems, templates are manually generated by a CMS administrator, and must be manually maintained by a CMS administrator. Without a way to automate some of the manual tasks normally performed by a CMS administrator in updating templates, the computer industry will continue to suffer from manual and inefficient tasks that must be performed when a template in a CMS needs to be updated.